Carta blends all of the elements we
at Silber loved about indie bands from the 1990s like Low, Tindersticks,
Hood, & Piano Magic. Slowcore. Post rock. Shoegaze.
They’re all & none of these things. They’re Carta.~
Brian John Mitchell, Silber Records

a brief history of Carta:

Carta originally formed in 2002 as a studio
project having a revolving membership around Kyle Monday & Jason Perez.
In 2005 they recorded The Glass Bottom Boat with the band drifting into
hiatus during a two-year search for a label (eventually released by Resonant
in 2007). By that time, the band had undergone a complete transformation,
with all former members gone except for Kyle Monday & Ray Welter they
regrouped with Oakland drummer Raj Ojha (who had just left electro-post-rock
band Run Return) & bassist/guitarist Sacha Galvagna (Charles Atlas).
The new version of Carta began to write entirely new material rather than
trying to re-work the old songs.

Originally planning two separate albums
(one song-focused & another made up of more ambient experimental tracks),
An Index of Birds emerged as a cohesive body of work from the disparate
sessions recorded at different times & studios. Cellist Alex
Kort (ex-Subtle) returned to work on several of the songs & Lorealle
Bishop took up the mantle as the band’s new female vocalist. Former
Continental drummer & Christopher Willits-collaborator Gabriel Coan
mixed several tracks on the album, & eventually became Carta’s dedicated
drummer.

Recorded & mixed by Carta, Sean
Coleman, & Eli Crews (Deerhoof, Why?, Citay) & following the direction
to ‘make things sound like they have been recovered from a sunken ship’,
the result is an album that recalls the debut in feel but has both a more
pastoral & more sinister tone. Placing more importance on vocals
this time out, “An Index Of Birds” was a dedicated attempt to move beyond
the stereotyped post-rock idioms & investigate textures & composition.
Tiny electronic landscapes, soundtrack bombast, krautrock-inspired psychedelia,
& brooding melodrama all find a home on an album you might hear on
an ambulance ride that could end in salvation be it life or death.

Current news: Sacha Galvagna can also
be heard with Charles Atlas on the Up in the Air soundtrack, &
Raj Ojha can also be heard playing drums with Howlin' Rain.

This is truly an album to
cherish during those quiet moments when you need to relax after a troubling
day, or just want to stare at the sunset or walk through the snowfall &
reminisce about the times of your life when everything was alright with
the world....~ Jeff Penczak, Foxy Digitalis

A welcome new addition to
the Silber family. Carta reminds us of a ton of stuff we like from
Low to Six by Seven to Plumerai to Charles Atlas & are in the tradition
of all the mid 1990s moody pop/slowcore/indie rock/post rock bands we came
of age to.

The debut effort by San Francisco's
Carta, led by guitarist Kyle Monday (writer or co-writer of all the songs,
and the only original bandmember left at the time of its release), finds
the group well established in working in the realm of contemplative atmospherics.
This isn't to say The Glass Bottom Boat is diaphanous new age or the like;
rather, like many fine bands before it -- Joy Division, Low, Mogwai among
others -- Carta seeks to use rock band instrumentation to emphasize reflective
mood rather than simply traditional performance.~ Ned Raggett, All Music
Guide